Gov. John Hickenlooper’s mostly controversy-free legislative session was helped in no small part by the balance of power in the legislature this year: It was the first time in a decade that the House and Senate have been held by different parties.

With Republicans controlling the House via a 33-32 majority and Democrats maintaining a 20-15 edge in the Senate, each chamber acted as a check on the other, leaving the Democratic governor to consider only legislation passed with bipartisan support.

“He neither had to confront legislation that was over-the-top or that was clearly partisan in its nature, such as some of the labor bills that found their way to (former Gov. Bill) Ritter’s desk,” said Denver political analyst Eric Sondermann.

“I think he was greatly benefited from that,” Sondermann said. “He didn’t have to be the disciplinarian on the Democratic agenda because the Republican House took care of that for him.”

The 2011 session was a story of deflected efforts on both sides.

There were 597 bills introduced, compared with 649 in 2010. Of those floated this year, 261 failed compared with 191 that failed last year when Democrats controlled both chambers and the governor’s office. Meanwhile, 336 bills passed this year compared with 458 last year.

Prime examples of measures Hickenlooper never had to consider include:

• A bill to extend in-state-tuition rates to illegal immigrants, which died in a House committee on a party-line vote. That spared the governor, who never clearly took a public position on the issue, from having to weigh in.

• A slew of GOP bills from the House that would have allowed for stricter enforcement of illegal-immigration laws. They died in the Senate at the hands of Democrats.

• A Republican bill allowing those who now qualify for concealed-weapons permits to carry concealed weapons without getting a permit. It passed the House but died in a Senate committee on a party-line vote.

• GOP-backed legislation to opt the state out of the 2010 federal health care law, which cleared the House but died in a Senate committee on a party-line vote.

Leaders in both houses agreed the split chambers acted as backstops to each other.

“He (Hickenlooper) has benefited from having a split legislature that didn’t send the hot-button issues to his desk,” said House Speaker Frank McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch.

Said House Minority Leader Sal Pace, D-Pueblo: “He knows every bill that’s going to get to his desk gets there with bipartisan support.”

On one controversial issue that appeared sure to fail — and ultimately did — Hickenlooper stuck his neck out anyway, coming out in favor of civil unions for same-sex couples. That Democratic bill passed the Senate (with a few Republican votes) but died in a House committee on a party-line vote.

A split legislature is the only legislature he knows, the governor said.

“I guess you could say that’s my good fortune,” Hickenlooper said.

He added, however, that Colorado governors have to be moderates, no matter the balance of power.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday that whistleblower protections passed by Congress in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008 apply only when those alleging corporate misdeeds bring their information to the government.

A prominent white nationalist is suing Twitter for banning his accounts at a time when social networks are trying to crack down on hateful and abusive content without appearing to censor unpopular opinions.

The social media service Twitter is believed to have suspended thousands of accounts for being automated bots, or for other policy violations, drawing outcry from fringe conservative media figures who lost followers in the move.